A race organizer who owes thousands of dollars to vendors and others—including police officers in Hawaii—has canceled a half marathon scheduled for Saturday in California. The decision is the latest in a string of unexpected race cancellations that have angered communities and left many runners without refunds.

Courtnee Woodring is a promoter based in Las Vegas who, along with her business partner, Leanne Crosby, were behind the now-canceled Long Beach Women’s Half Marathon. Their company, VictoryShe, is an online retailer of women’s fitness apparel and a race management company that launched last fall.

In 2013, Woodring attempted to put on a multi-state series of at least four races under the name “Run, Rock and Wine.” Last October, 489 people paid $35 to $65 to participate in the Honolulu Run, Rock and Wine half marathon. Complaints began showing up on a Facebook page for the race the day following the event, and the comments continued through December. According to the comments, finishers didn’t receive medals, goody bags or the wine glasses they were promised. A common theme was that runners emailed Woodring’s company and hadn’t received a clear update.

As of June 4, Woodring hadn’t paid the $8,043.70 her company owes the 43 officers from the Honolulu Police Department who worked the event, department spokesperson Michelle Yu confirmed in an email. “HPD has opened a theft investigation and will be working the Hawaii Attorney General on this case,” Yu wrote. “We are currently in the initial stages of the investigation and are not releasing further info at this time.”

Many vendors from the race said they hadn’t been paid, including $1,700 to the timing company, $2,000 to the equipment production company, $2,200 to the traffic management company, $3,000 to the T-shirt maker and $300 to the race announcer.

Some vendors Runner’s World Newswire spoke with have asked a collection agency to recover the money, while others deem the amount too small to pursue.

“We went through the normal process of calling her and getting a billing address,” said Kenneth Young, the manager of Roadway Solutions, which provided traffic control for the event. “Initially she seemed forthcoming and nothing seemed suspicious, but as time went on and efforts to get paid failed, the reality of the situation was becoming apparent. Even though we were able to speak with Courtnee, and she always made promises, it was quite clear that it was not her intent to pay us. We just had to eat it and move on.”

An Abrupt CancellationWoodring was supposed to hold a Run, Rock and Wine 5/10K three weeks later in San Diego. But on October 31, three days before race day, the event sent an email to registrants that read, in part, “We have been advised to change our event date and venue, as our organization has received information regarding possibly [sic] activity during our scheduled time that would interfere with this event.” No details were given on what the activity was. The email said the race would be rescheduled for January 11, 2014, but the make-up event wasn’t run.

According to the San Diego Parks and Recreation Department, an application was submitted for the race, but a valid permit was never issued because Woodring canceled the race. Woodring says she decided to not hold the race because her on-site consultant for the Honolulu event, Ron Pate, a veteran local race director who didn’t know Woodring before working with her on the Hawaii race, had called the San Diego running store where packet pick-up would take place and alerted them to Woodring leaving Hawaii without paying her bills. “It was not a good time to have an event,” said Woodring.

When asked if the race was able to refund the money for each of the approximately 150 registrants, Woodring told Newswire, “Yeah, we were actually. We sat in our office the whole day and wrote checks.”

People registered for that event told a different story.

“I tried numerous times to reach the company via phone and never got anyone to pick up,” said Amy Morrison, who had paid $30 to enter. “I contacted them multiple times by email and was promised a refund multiple times. They even told me a check had been sent, but nothing ever showed.” Morrison said a friend, who paid $50 for a late entry, requested but didn’t receive a refund. Morrison eventually got a refund, but it came from her bank in late January. The same was true for Sean Lee, who said he emailed the race multiple times requesting a refund. He got his $45 entry fee back in late January, but only after going through his bank and getting the funds at the bank’s expenses. “It sickens me that a person or group can do this so easily and get away with it,” Lee wrote in an email.

After Newswire shared these responses with Woodring, she replied, “Okay, if you want to forward me their information, I’d be happy to get in touch.” She added, “I don’t have any interest in trying to screw anyone over.”

Logo IssuesLast July, Woodring put on a Run, Rock and Wine 5/10K in San Antonio, Texas; 309 people participated. The race website displayed the Make-A-Wish Foundation’s logo and noted the event was “proud to support the wonderful Make-A-Wish Fdt. [sic] of Central & South Texas during our July 27th Event!” Newswire asked Woodring about the connection between her event and the Make-A-Wish Foundation. “If you want to call the MAF Fdt [sic] you'll find that they were going to possibly fill booth space if they had available volunteers and we put up their logo to let people know they were going to be there,” Woodring wrote in an email on May 12. “To my recollection they were not.”

When contacted, the Make-A-Wish offices in San Antonio and Austin—the only two offices in Central and South Texas—said they had no affiliation with the race, hadn’t given the race permission to use its logo and hadn’t received a donation from the race. “We NEVER set up booths at events, unless they are benefitting us and the organizer has signed our Event Licensing Agreement,” wrote Amy Hone, the foundation’s chief development officer for Central and South Texas. “We have had no contact with anyone from that race and did not volunteer to staff a booth.”

Also last summer, Get Loco Events, another race management company Woodring operates, used the logo for the Las Vegas Discovery Children’s Museum on the website that advertised its Loco Las Vegas 5K. “Our Vegas course passed the museum and they were allowing us to use their parking lot if needed and I asked if we could use their logo because they had just reopened after redesigning the museum,” wrote Woodring.

Woodring could not provide Newswire with the name of her contact at the museum. Newswire contacted Denyce Tuller, the museum’s director of marketing and publication relations, for clarification. “Discovery Children’s Museum was not affiliated, in any way, with the Loco Las Vegas Race,” replied Tuller, who had not heard of the race and was unaware that the museum’s logo had been used to promote it.

The Las Vegas race, scheduled for the same day in July as the San Antonio Run, Rock and Wine, wasn’t held. “That event was canceled because there were about 7 people registered and we chose to do an event at another location on that date,” wrote Woodring. “Would you host a $[10,000] event with 9 people?? I wouldn't. This instance may be a good example that displays I am really not interested in having police, staff, volunteers, or other people at an event where I'm going to get fiscally sunk and be unable to sustain and possibly let anyone down.”

Clash with RRCAWoodring has operated her races under a range of organization names, including VictoryShe, VictoryRuns, USA Women’s Half Marathon, SMA Running, Loco Running Events and Get Loco Events. She sometimes markets the same-named event on different websites. For example, the Honolulu Run, Rock and Wine Half Marathon and the San Diego Run, Rock and Wine 5/10K were advertised on VictoryRuns.com, while the San Antonio Run, Rock and Wine 5/10K was promoted on GetLocoEvents.com.

Woodring has drawn the attention of the Road Runners Club of America, which first put her on its watch list in 2012 when Woodring submitted an application to become part of the RRCA’s tax-exempt group of nonprofit running clubs. As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that has a group exemption with the IRS, the RRCA can recognize nonprofit running clubs as its subordinates. A primary benefit of that classification is that the clubs pay no federal income tax on related business income. This is the designation Woodring sought for her USA Women’s Half Marathon series.

“We rejected their bylaws, because they were written as being organized as a club when the USA Women's Half Marathon Series - We Sweat Pink was clearly an event management company,” wrote Jean Knack, executive director of the RRCA. “She never followed up with updated bylaws for a nonprofit event organization, so I assumed she figured out that it wouldn't be that easy to get nonprofit status for what was clearly a for-profit event series.”

While its application status was pending with the RRCA, the USA Women’s Half Marathon Series paid club dues to the RRCA from June to December 2012, according to Knack. It held no races during that time and ceased paying dues at the end of 2012. The RRCA didn’t again hear from, or about, Woodring’s companies until August 2013, when a racer from California wrote to the RRCA to complain about the San Francisco Run, Rock and Wine 5/10K that was supposed to be held on June 22 in Golden Gate Park. The event, to be put on by Get Loco Events, was rescheduled for September 14, but wasn’t run. According to Diane Rea, the Golden Gate Park special events supervisor, the park had no record of the event and hadn’t received a permit application from Get Loco Events.

The runner saw that the RRCA’s logo was on the Get Loco Events webpage, assumed that the RRCA was a race partner and wrote to the RRCA to complain that Get Loco Events hadn’t sent a refund despite repeated emails requesting one. That’s when Knack learned that Woodring was behind Get Loco Events and that the organization was using the RRCA logo without permission on GetLocoEvents.com and VictoryRuns.com. The RRCA had no record of either of these organizations as members, so Knack emailed the general VictoryRuns address to say the site was using the RRCA’s logo without written authorization and requested the logos be taken down from both VictoryRuns.com and GetLocoEvents.com.

When asked about using the RRCA logo, Woodring wrote in an email on May 12, “The RRCA we were members of until last year and I will ensure their logo gets removed from the website.” The RRCA logo was taken down from VictoryRuns.com, but the logo remained on the bottom of the Get Loco Events homepage nine months after Knack requested it be removed.

A Troubling TrendDubious races have popped up across the country in recent years. Earlier this year, Newswire reported on the Free Half Marathon, which required runners to pay a $50 deposit that was supposed to be refunded once the race occurred. But the race was canceled, and some entrants reported difficulty in getting a refund. Last fall, the Great American Mud Run canceled its series of races because it ran out of money and told Newswire it would only be able refund entry fees for about half of the remaining registrants. The inaugural Liberty Run Marathon, originally scheduled to take place in New Jersey on May 25, 2013, was canceled on May 14 due to the race organizer not filling out all of the required permit paperwork, according to city officials in New Jersey. A subsequent Newswire story revealed that the organization that was to put on the race, The Liberty Run Foundation, billed itself as a registered 501(c)(3) when it hadn’t received that tax-exempt status from the IRS.

These types of failed races have become common enough that the RRCA has created a “Buyer Beware” list for prospective race entrants to consider. Items to check include looking for events that have been run before, looking for events put on by a local race director or running club and, especially for inaugural races, looking to see if the race website lists all of the relevant details, such as the exact starting location, packet pick-up location, events rules regarding refunds and race director contact information.

As of the middle of May, Woodring told Newswire she planned to hold the VictoryShe half marathon on Long Beach this weekend. At the time, according to the Long Beach special events department, Woodring was in the process of submitting all of the proper paperwork and was working to obtain an event permit. But on May 27, the Long Beach permits department confirmed that Woodring had canceled the race. Woodring said the cancellation was due to the new VictoryShe website going up only 30 days before the event. “We were originally supposed to have a web launch of February but it didn't happen,” Woodring wrote Newswire on May 27. “And if you are wondering, we had 12 people registered and yes they will be sent refunds. :)”

The Woodring FileWoodring, who sometimes goes by her maiden name, Hunt, is originally from the San Diego area and attended Sonoma State University where, at least during her sophomore year of 1998-99, she competed on the cross country and track teams. Following college, she moved to Las Vegas and met her husband, according to the bio she had up on VictoryShe.com. (The site was taken down in May.)

A screen grab of Woodring's bio from one of her race management sites.

Woodring has also worked with her sister, Ashley Hunt Nicolls, a real estate agent in Coronado, California, on another race management venture, Loco Running Events. The website for Loco Running Events is no longer live, but its Facebook page shows the last event it held was the South Padre Island Loco Half Marathon/10K beach race on June 1, 2013.

Attempts to reach Woodring’s sister and Leanne Crosby were unsuccessful. Prior to joining VictoryShe, Crosby’s bio states, she was a stay-at-home mother and had worked as a guidance counselor and math teacher at a Las Vegas high school. She ran the 2012 Rock ’n’ Roll Las Vegas Half Marathon in 1:56:38.

Outstanding BillsWoodring blamed the issues in Hawaii on naiveté. “If I could turn back time and do it all over again, I would,” she said. “It basically put us in a position where it was too much to recover from. We were in way over our heads when we got there, and I wish we would have known better.”

A Honolulu Department of Transportation employee, who worked on Woodring’s road race permit and asked not to be named because he didn’t know if he was allowed to speak to the media, said the DOT recommended to Woodring that she hire a local race director to serve as an on-site consultant because Woodring hadn’t put on an event in Hawaii, was from out of state and was conducting her daily business on the mainland. Woodring hired Pate, who said he hasn’t been paid the $250 balance due for his consulting services.

Pate said Woodring was made aware of all of her responsibilities regarding managing the race, including what was needed to pay vendors, and that she lacked the proper directing expertise to put on a race of the intended size. Woodring said having information filtered through Pate left her out of the loop.

For example, Woodring said she didn’t know until the day of the race that each of the 43 police officers who worked the event had to be paid with individual checks. (Pate said he repeatedly told her about this in advance.) In Hawaii, she didn’t have 43 checks with her.

“In past events, when there is more than one police officer, we write one check to the police department and they take it from there,” said Woodring. “Mr. Pate told me that that in Hawaii they do it different, and that is fine, but I needed to know before I flew out there that that is how they did it.”

When asked why she still hasn’t paid the police officers, Woodring replied, “I felt more comfortable dealing directly with the police department than having to go through [Pate] until I had an invoice. The whole situation, with the assignment of the officers and how that all worked—I wasn’t aware until I got there. It was very overwhelming. I really didn’t know what to think at that point.”

Recent emails between the Honolulu Police Department and Pate showed that the Honolulu Police Department was seeking the $8,043.70 owed to its officers from Pate, because Pate set up the contract. Pate said he told them to contact Victory Events, Woodring’s race management company that operated the race. Woodring won’t send Pate the check to disburse to the officers because she wants to work directly with the Honolulu police department.

Newswire asked Woodring what’s preventing her from paying the other vendors in Hawaii whom she still owes money. “This event cooked us and put us to the ground and then some,” Woodring wrote, adding, “I've admitted to mistakes and admit that I should not have gone into territory where I wasn't working with people I knew or a process I wasn't familiar with. It was all around not a great idea.”

Woodring continues to promote races. VictoryShe is currently advertising specials for its next scheduled event, the Huntington Beach Women’s Half Marathon on September 20. Interested participants can register on Active.com for $45. The organizer’s website link on Active.com takes users to a new VictoryShe website: VSheFitness.us. A WhoIs.net search reveals VSheFitness was set up on May 26, 2014; the administrative contact address listed is the one that has been used by Woodring’s other businesses.